Cartoon 765: fantasy and bull

Everywhere there is the conventional wisdom that all you need to do is start a business to improve your financial status. It presupposes that most people have the basic criteria for starting a successful business. This thinking represents America fantasy and the “bull” [unadulterated lie] proffered by capitalist evangelist.

The statistics suggest that few startup businesses will last five years. For overwhelming numbers of Americans a startup business or franchise is not a route to financial success. The other fantasy is that you can save your way to financial success. That only applies if you have significant income beyond basic survival. A final fantasy is that you can acquire the skill sets for financial success. That implies advance education in specific fields and available positions. The costs of such an education is being priced out any meaningful return on investment. A four year college degree at a medium institution will run about $100,000 dollars. Starting with a large amount of debt entering the job market prevents people from getting their head above water.

If we sum up America today; a business startup, investments through savings, and education are not financial success options, except for a very select few. Where does that leave the rest of Americans, permanent serfdom? Perhaps it is time the younger generations do what the Irish did, leave the country for opportunities elsewhere.

There was a cartoon in the newspaper. In essence one of the characters was giving good news and bad news. The bad news was his young adult generation will be the first not to improve their lives over their parents. The good news is that his young adult generation will fare better than their children and their children will consider them fortunate.